All B/R update speculation.

[Kanti]

Okay, my turn again. Can't we just ban Ponder, and Preordain? Then your "cantrip cartel" would be reduced to what? Brainstorm and Opt? You know it's bad when Miracles starts running x4 Ponder, and not just RUG. Now it's Miracles, Delver, and combo all running x3-4 Ponder. That's okay?

I see Darken replied above. Yeah, it is damn good, but it would be a lot worse if you had to run it alongside cantrips that weren't Ponder, Preordain, or Probe as those cantrips make a synergestic enviroment where you have 8-16 super cantrips. Cantrip based decks run on the fact that there are many good and cheap cantrips printed, and to think that Brainstorm is only amazing and cheap cantrip printed is fallacy. Once again, 29/32 Ponders in the top 8. If that isn't turning your head, but Brainstorm is, I don't know what to say. Both should be.

[Megadeus]

Okay, my turn again. Can't we just ban Ponder, and Preordain? Then your "cantrip cartel" would be reduced to what? Brainstorm and Opt? You know it's bad when Miracles starts running x4 Ponder, and not just RUG. Now it's Miracles, Delver, and combo all running x3-4 Ponder. That's okay?

I see Darken replied above. Yeah, it is damn good, but it would be a lot worse if you had to run it alongside cantrips that weren't Ponder, Preordain, or Probe as those cantrips make a synergestic enviroment where you have 8-16 super cantrips. Cantrip based decks run on the fact that there are many good and cheap cantrips printed, and to think that Brainstorm is only amazing and cheap cantrip printed is fallacy. Once again, 29/32 Ponders in the top 8. If that isn't turning your head, but Brainstorm is, I don't know what to say. Both should be.

But then you are simply banning some weaker cards that do a similar (but generally weaker) thing rather than simply banning the main offender.

[Scott]

Brainstorm is worlds more powerful and ubiquitous than Earthcraft, Mind Twist, Black Vise, Survival of the Fittest, and probably Frantic Search (especially if Brainstorm were not legal).

The thing is, most people who see inconsistencies in alcohol and pot legality prefer to legalize weed, rather than criminalize alcohol.

[iGrok]

The thing is, most people who see inconsistencies in alcohol and pot legality prefer to legalize weed, rather than criminalize alcohol.

This is exactly how I feel.

1) In Discard matches, you can effectively 'hide' your key cards whilst on the play;
2) Brainstorm is the most efficient tempo card in the formet, even taking into account the possibility of locking yourself for two turns if you whiff on your needs.

It is head and shoulders above everything else in the formet in terms of quality.

I completely agree that Brainstorm is a better card than Thought Scour (or any other card in Legacy - though there will always be a "best card"). nedleeds was arguing that Brainstorm is better fuel for delve, which is absurd and a demonstration of his pure irrationality regarding cantrips.

[nedleeds]

There was no argument. I presented a top 8 with 16 DTT and zero Thought Scour, and 32 Brainstorms, pairing DTT with Brainstorm is obviously superior to pairing with Thought scour. You opined about 'broken' delve spells none of which touch or touched in the case of cruise the usage rate of Brainstorm but yet dont consider brainstorm broken. You seem to be unable to confront my earlier question.

[Aggro_zombies]

This thread is getting heated. Calm down and keep the discussion civil. That includes you too, nedleeds.

[Emo]

I'm leaning with nedleeds here. Brainstorm is just the best cantrip period. That's why it works so well with delve spells, its additional synergy. thought scour and probe aren't as powerful as brainstorm even though they have better delve synergy with DTT. The reason everyone plays brainstorm instead in decks with DTT is because its well umm.. amazing, and it just happens to have additional synergy with DTT. Probe and thought scour as stand alone cards don't hold a candle to BS. You can keep a one lander with BS and DTT, you can't keep a one lander with probe and DTT or thought Scour and DTT- this is just a corner case example but the point is to highlight the versatility of BS.

[iGrok]

Yeah, Brainstorm is a better card. Here's ned's argument though:

Thought Scour is pretty good. Brainstorm enables Delve cards far more than even Thought Scour otherwise it would be played at higher levels. Brainstorm is a far better enabler for delve than Salvage style cards and there is indisputable proof in that it's 100%, 32/32 in a top 8 with 16 DTT (50%) and there are 0 Thought Scours.

To get back to my point, the actually important thing about Salvage is that it only hits creatures or lands, which makes chaining cantrips or digging counterspells impossible. This makes the Salvage less powerful in blue decks than in fair decks. Legacy needs that kind of cantrip for B/G/W because if you give those colors that type of card selection ability at a powerful enough manacost, blue's card advantage is diminished without making the format less consistent as a whole.

[FoolofaTook]

Yeah, discard isn't an effective way of dealing with the stack, but it does, to some degree, prevent the blue mage from interfering. What black does get is raw card advantage (Hymn, Lili, Therapy). It's okay for different colors to interact more or less with the stack as long as that advantage is made up for elsewhere. Otherwise, we get what you said - clones of blue decks in every color.

Discard is more effective in helping a blue mage abuse the stack unimpeded than in preventing them from doing so. Duress is used ONLY by blue mages looking to run a ton of spells through the stack for a quick win. Thoughtseize is mainly used by blue mages looking to clear removal or counters out of the opponent's hand so they can play a win-con and win unimpeded.

Black discard has joined Tarmogoyf as a mostly blue asset.

[Dice_Box]

That's not exactly a new point. There is a reason that Underground has been the most expensive dual for years.

[Kanti]

Since my post got deleted: Happy 420!!!

[Richard Cheese]

This thread is getting heated. Calm down and keep the discussion civil. That includes you too, nedleeds.

[ahg113]

Delver is the problem... not brainstorm.

+ TNN
+ Snappy
+ V. Clique

All four of them are the problem.

[Barook]

The more people start to play Dig Through Time now, the more I think it should have been banned alongside TC, similiar to Modern.

The card is just plain dumb and not far away in terms of powerlevel from TC. I wouldn't be suprised if we saw a significant increase soon when people realize how busted it is.

+ TNN
+ Snappy
+ V. Clique

All four of them are the problem.

Snappy and Clique are fine, expect they are abominations of the color pie (at least Clique).

As for cards that ruined the format, I'd say:
- Delver (the starting point where everything went to shit)
- Griselbrand
- S&T (due to the stupid shit Wizards printed)
- Terminus
- TNN

They all sucked the fun out of the format.

[twndomn]

The more people start to play Dig Through Time now, the more I think it should have been banned alongside TC, similiar to Modern.

The card is just plain dumb and not far away in terms of powerlevel from TC. I wouldn't be suprised if we saw a significant increase soon when people realize how busted it is.

They all sucked the fun out of the format.

Concepts such as fun and beauty are very subjective. In Magic, does fun equate to winning? Can you win frequently but still not having fun?

Wizard had plenty of chances to do something about Brainstorm, Delver, Show and Tell, yet Wizard didn't. The only new kid on the block is DTT. This rise of Omni-tell will make GP Lille more important than ever.

[Megadeus]

The more people start to play Dig Through Time now, the more I think it should have been banned alongside TC, similiar to Modern.

The card is just plain dumb and not far away in terms of powerlevel from TC. I wouldn't be suprised if we saw a significant increase soon when people realize how busted it is.


Snappy and Clique are fine, expect they are abominations of the color pie (at least Clique).

As for cards that ruined the format, I'd say:
- Delver (the starting point where everything went to shit)
- Griselbrand
- S&T (due to the stupid shit Wizards printed)
- Terminus
- TNN

They all sucked the fun out of the format.

I agree here. DTT is fucking nuts. Watching Julian stream the new Omniscience deck earlier was insane. Then Not having to run another clunky spell like ETI makes it really dumb.

[Lemnear]

I agree here. DTT is fucking nuts. Watching Julian stream the new Omniscience deck earlier was insane. Then Not having to run another clunky spell like ETI makes it really dumb.

It's funny to look back into the Spoiler thread and see the people making fun of my statement "That DTT will replace Enter the Infinite in OmniTell".

[btm10]

It's pretty much the purpose of this thread. Ignore me. Or come up with a cogent argument against my statement:

Brainstorm is a significantly more powerful card than cards currently on the Legacy banned list. Even if some of those cards were to be unbanned Brainstorm would drown them in usage rate. Brainstorm has achieved 100% saturation in Legacies highest level event(s). Other cards have been banned with less saturation (Survival, Mystical). Thus Brainstorm should be banned.

There was a podcast shortly after the Fate Reforged bannings where Chapin was discussing what happened in each format (if someone remembers what it's called, please post a link) and he pointed out that the entire Legacy format "hinges on the illusion that Brainstorm is a reasonable card". I agree with that assessment. I'm willing to buy into the illusion and keep playing because I don't think that Legacy without Brainstorm would be substantially better than Legacy with Brainstorm, and I certainly don't think that as many people would be playing. You may disagree, but many people don't; I know I significantly cut back on Vintage after Brainstorm got restricted as did more than one person I know. So yes, based on power level, Brainstorm should be banned. Based on what's good for the format, it shouldn't. I think the same thing about a number of cards on the banned list right now, but that's not what we're discussing. Even though we disagree about what's best for the format, surely we can agree that Brainstorm is incredibly unlikely to ever be banned and that WotC wants it this way.

[LOLWut]

It's funny to look back into the Spoiler thread and see the people making fun of my statement "That DTT will replace Enter the Infinite in OmniTell".

Another wonderful example of not trusting the crowd.

I think Dig Through Time should replace Enter the Infinity in OmniTell as it's never really dead. Guess it's awesome in any S&T deck

... that can afford to wait until it has 5+ cards in the GY until it goes off.

I think people are seriously underestimating how hard it is to 'accidentally' get delve fodder in the GY early. Fetch, Discard to Thoughtseize, Ponder, Brainstorm, Spell Pierce - typically at that point I want to be killing them, not digging. If you want a Tutor, run Intuition...

Know what Treasure Cruise is? It's AK, at Sorcery speed - an Engine-esque card that just draws more cards. Don't get me wrong, I would love to live in a world (for a while) where AK was the Bee's Knees in Legacy, but it requires too much setup, and the decks that benefit most from it aren't very strong currently.

Are you kidding or did you name the wrong card?
Everything else does not make sense.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

How is a format where everybody effectively kills by turn 4 better than the current format?

I'd offer a competing vision...
The way to make the game better is to lessen the consistency for everybody and widen the playable card pool in the process. Then you wind up with games that can go over quickly with great draws but that also can stall to the opponent's denial or to their own draw petering out for awhile. You get real value out of 4cc and even 5cc cards because the game isn't guaranteed to go over before they become playable. You don't have to win the game with any play over 3cc as is generally the case now.

It's the huge emphasis on the first 2 or 3 turns that makes Legacy such a boring repetitive experience at this point.

This is extremely well-written post and I really like it.

While I'm a huge fan of short games - contrary to what most of the true causals like -, the speed is unbearable today. Moreover, lots if what I liked about Magic , e.g. big dumb creatures or amazing effects in cmc4 range (Mystic Enforcer, Armageddoneddon, Cataclysm, Smokestack, etc.) are either unplayable anymore, or are limited to 8Tombs deck. But if you're erious about MtG and play deck with Sol lands, then you definitely play Show & Tel, not geddon and such.

It'll be interesting to see a bit slower format, one where there is abit more variance both speaking of decks, and speaking of gaming experience, something more akin to QL Magic or the old Legacy back in cca 2008.
Needless to say: it won't happen.